In the early days of war (factoring in the Robosmasher) war between Megatron's and Optimus Prime's armies. What would be your ideal (approximately) proportion of Decepticons to Autobots, in the original cartoon?

 

Well for me to answer that question I need to know your feelings about Non-combatant Autobots?

The way I see it, as a population tge autobots might outnumber the decepticons, but I fell the autobots would have a greater number of those that aren’t fighters, for various different reasons

if we are only considering the size of their fighting force , thrn I feel the cons should outnumber the bots by at least 2 to one

 

In the beginning, I feel there was way more consumer goods than military hardware.
But during the golden age, decepticons began to build more drones, use devices like robosmasher to recruit more troops. Thus, by the time of the war, I would say decepticons outnumbered autobots. They had this unique ability to create all these clone armies: eg like the reflectors; the seekers; the transport trucks; only autobots who had such a thing seemed to be the junkions.
I do not count non combatants or Transformers who are not autobots or decepticons (eg sharkticons, or sentinel guardian robots, centurion drones, or certain colonists of paradron).
Marvel comics depict a bunch of lower class outcast reject Transformers who consisted of the majority of cybertrons population. Decepticons typically rounded them up to melt them down for metal, or as slave work. I am not counting them. Nor am a counting sparkless drones, who I think both sides do not even consider alive.

 

The Decepticon modus, of flying planes and jets is a keen perception by the writers. Being able to fly is not an underdog vantage point, thus, it makes sense for Megatron to own the flying ability, with the exception of Powerglide, who was only introduced relatively late to the party.

With the Autobot assembly being small in height, compared to Megatron's seekers and coneheads, and Soundwave, there is a magic symmetry logistic in regards to Optimus Prime being the same height as Megatron

 

Good question, taking a step back at the end of the previous war, I think the Autobots would outnumber the Decepticons on a basis of 3 to 1 (I think the Decepticons would have kept fighting until there was no hope, but who knows as from the original cartoon we really do not know anything about previous leaders). Maybe, on that basis the Autobots did not create much more designated fighters but maybe a load of characters like Orion Pax and Dion who were meant to work on the docks for example.

Interest to think how soon that Megatron's forces would have defeated the Autobot armed forces.

Thinking about War Dawn and Alpha Trion lines, it seemed in that attack maybe the Decepticons pretty much destroyed civillian populations, and Alpha Trion rebuilt any robot he could into stronger robots. Just thinking in the season 1, Brawn and Ironhide seem the most aggressive.

Yeah, when I think it is Huffer who says something like we are not fighters like them, Huffer is talking about the crew of the Ark, who for the most part were maybe created during the golden age, but not with Combat really in mind.

To me, with Vector Sigma, it is interesting to think that how the Decepticons got access to Vec.tor Sigma to create a large enough army to take on the Autobots (assuming that from the previous war most of the Decepticons would be killed and not rebuilt).

I think just using Vector Sigma, it would be hard enough to get enough access without the Autobots learning what the Decepticons were up to. So for me, Soundwave and tapes, Shockwave, Megatron, Decepticon jets, Reflector, and many other military vehicles would be created through Vector Sigma, but to supplement the army, I can see many drones being created like in War Dawn, where some trucks seem to be sentient but most could be clones.

I guess after the start of the war, the robosmasher could be used on captured Autobots to help the Decepticons take further Autobot Cities.

Interesting to think about Powerglide, I guess he would have been created for short flights around Cybertron, perhaps in the old days the Autobots had their own military airforce, but maybe the seekers were just too good for them.

 

I can see the possibility that by the end of the previous the Autobots outnumbeing the Decepticons maybe even 3 to 1 , but that would only be if you are useing a political point of view

The way I see it, the Autobot numbers Probably swelled at the end of that war, with large numbers of Disenfranchised Deceptacon’s switching sides for a number of personal reasons (Not really because they’re ideologies) changed

I also see the possibility of the autobots numbers growing do to how many civilians likely joins after that war was done

I really don’t see many if any of the cons from the previous war being killed

But I see is a massive program that has them slowly being re-integrated into society but result in them being treated like second-class citizens

I guess it’s possible but I’ll see it more likely to powerglide was part of some civilian air delivery service

 

I can imagine, the Decepticons going though a couple of leaders as the Autobots got on top in part through developing the art of transformation.

By the time, it is clear to the Decepticons that they are going to lose the war, I can see most of the major ones fleeing Cybertron (giving Devcon a job to do).

I guess I can see some switching sides for convenience, but I see a strategy of Decepticons just settling for a peace treaty until they can develop transformers of their own.

I like to think that the previous Autobot leader (I think subsequently named Sentinel Prime) was a fairly ruthless leader by Optimus Prime's standards, but maybe any or at least most Decepticon survivors (maybe Blitzwing is the exception, as he has the longest apparent memory in Five Faces of Darkness) from the previous war were killed in the first 5M years of the war. I guess we do not know but can only speculate.

I have watched a bit of the Nuremberg trials, and I kind of see parallels between what happened in post-1945, and what could happen at the start of the golden age on Cybertron.

I definitely think that in the Golden Age, the Decepticons definitely saw themselves as second class citizens, it would be interesting to explore if most Decepticons were just bitter from losing the war or there was some really significant mistreatment of Decepticons, even if some did try and live peacefully in society.

I can go along with that he was created as for civilian air deliveries. Just thinking that at the start of the golden age, maybe Autobots were created with more combat skills, but maybe as time went on, maybe there was an air of complacency, and Autobots got created with little combat skills or when created they were not properly trained for combat. Just a theory.

 

I see the con leaders during those years being more like fake figure heads, guys tge autobots thought they could work with that had once been popular with decepticon troops

We are still talking about the G1 cartoon continuity, Much as we are trying to inject a few more mature themes I can’t go as far as to except any autobot leader as being brutal

Yeah it will be interesting

Again it sounds interesting[/quote]

 

To me, it would be interesting to see the closing days of the war, maybe just before the war ended, when any real hope was lost, would the Decepticons just nominate one of their most intellectual member to be leader in order to negiotiate the best possible terms.

It would be interesting to think of what would be the harshest punishment the Autobots could impose on captured Decepticon. I mean, Optimus with the Dinobots, in early said series 1 said something like the Dinobots must be destroyed. I kind of think the Autobots could go as far as death by firing squad, but if going down that road, death would be administered as humanely as possible.

Interesting if at the end of Heavy Metal War, if the Autobots captured the Decepticons, it would have been tempting for them to terminate Megatron and Starscream (at least), but the likes of Thundercracker, maybe just imprisonment or something relatively minor.

A bit like Ravage, in Beast Wars, his life was spared, but maybe some of his team mates were not so lucky.


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Don't forget Cosmos. (Sideswipe had rocket pack) Then theirs tracks, Omega Supreme, season 3 autobot triple changers, sky Lynx.
I think all autobots could fly. It's just that most where not as fast or as maneuverable. And a few decepticons where like this too on air or land. (Not fast or manauverable)

Ironhide ratchet, trailbreaker, inferno, hoist, Grapple, blaster, perceptor, where all pretty big bots...about same as a seeker.

I bet the transport trucks destroyed lots of civilian robots. I bet shockwaves sentinels also took out many. I bet other seekers like rainmakers also did.

I think vector sigma was created and used by quintessons to make original models of consumers goods and military hardwares. But only a very few knew about this. (Eg. Alpha Trion, decepticon leaders, autobot leaders, and only highest ranking officers in both sides.

 

Such an interesting character, I think his cartoon alt-mode was also his alt-mode over 4M years ago. I guess just created to explore space.

Easy for me that seekers attack cities from the air but transport trucks probably physically raided such cities.

I would have thought in the golden age that Vector Sigma was quite well guarded by Autobots, but seemingly the Decepticons were able to create significant number of newly created Decepticons.

 

They never clarified whether or not he got a new Alt mode

 

I think in the beginning, quintessons had those green centurion drones guard vector sigma. And it remained that way throughout golden age right up to season1 time in 1984.
Alpha Trion had a key. Guys like Shockwave also seemed to know how to acces vector sigma and bypass the old quintesson security too.

 

Umm

Megatron and Shockwave only accessed vector sigma and bypassed the green guards with the Key they stole from Vector Sigma

 

True. The key was the way to access vector sigma. But Megatron and Shockwave seemed to know their way to it. (The location). By access I meant they knew it's location. With or without a key.

 

I understand you better now

Shockwave seemed to to an extensive computer search

Alpha Trion seemed to be the only character to remember on his own

 

A lot of the original Autobots are actually smaller than the original Decepticons, including Ironhide - Optimus is genuinely against the grain.